Yarra Council unanimously rejects the development

On 26 November 2008 the Internal Development Approvals Committee of Yarra Council voted unanimously to reject the development application. The official decision of the Council states that the rejection was on the following grounds:

1. The proposal does not accord with the relevant policies and provisions of the Yarra Planning Scheme, particularly clause 19.03 and 22.10 relating to built form and height.
2. The proposal has unreasonable off-site amenity impacts.
3. The proposal demonstrates poor internal amenity for the proposed dwellings.
4. The proposal does not provide a reasonable level of on-site car parking.
5. The proposal represents an overdevelopment of the site.

Read the minutes of the Council meeting (pages 7 – 40):
http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/Council/Meetings/pdf/Minutes08/IDAC2611m.pdf

It must be emphasised that other options were open to the Council. It could have voted to approve the development subject to certain conditions. It could have voted to waive the car parking requirements of the Yarra Planning Scheme, as requested by the developers.

Instead, it unanimously voted to completely reject the proposal. This is the strongest possible rebuke that a Council can give to a development application.

Since this decision, the developers had several options open to them. They could have discussed the flaws in the development with the Council and re-submitted a more appropriate proposal. They could have talked to the numerous neighbours who lodged objections and tried to take on board their concerns.

But they did neither. Instead, they are now trying to have the Council’s unanimous decision overturned in VCAT and have not attempted to modify their proposal in any way. They have not even sought to discuss any of the legitimate issues raised in the dozens of objections by concerned neighbours.

Why are they ignoring the Council’s decision? Why are they ignoring the concerns of local residents?

Who is behind the development?

The company behind the development is Meldev Property Group Pty Ltd.

Its directors are Geoffrey Raines and Anthony Gordon. Its shareholders are another member of the Raines family and Jakalex Pty Ltd. Jakalex Pty Ltd is a shelf company of Anthony Gordon.

Neither of them are even from Melbourne. They are both Gold Coast property developers.

Name: Anthony Gordon
D.O.B: 17.01.61
Occupation: Property Developer
Lives: Gold Coast

Name: Geoffrey Raines
D.O.B: 10.08.56
Occupation: Property Developer
Lives: Gold Coast

These developers have no connection to York Street and have shown no interest in the local area or the concerns of residents. They have not even attended any of the council consultation sessions or meetings. Instead, they have hid behind their hired planning consultants, SJB Planning.

It’s no wonder they are so out-of-touch.

Anthony Gordon is from a prominent Gold Coast developer family and lives on a beachfront mansion on Hedges Avenue, Mermaid Beach on the Gold Coast. This street was recently described in The Australian as ‘millionaires row’ and contains Queensland’s most expensive piece of real estate (Courier Mail, 2 May 2008).

Geoffrey Raines has not lived in Melbourne for years. Supporters of Richmond (the football club) have long been disappointed with him for letting down the team when he left to play for Collingwood. Now, residents of Richmond (the suburb) have just as much right to be even more disappointed with him.

Dirty Tricks in development campaign

Sneaky attempt to stifle local community

On 14th August 2008 concerned residents of York Street organised a community meeting to discuss the planning application for the enormous development of the Melba site. This meeting was advertised by leaflets hand-delivered to each letter box in York Street:
On the very day of the meeting a mysterious leaflet appeared in the same letterboxes stating that the meeting had been cancelled. This leaflet was not produced by anyone associated with the meeting, which was still scheduled to proceed as planned:
Who was responsible?

Who was responsible for such a dirty trick? What do the developers know of this sneaky act?

This incident raises serious questions about the tactics of those who support the development and oppose the right of concerned neighbours to express their legitimate interests.

It also raises serious questions about their approach to dealing with legitimate community concerns. Will they approach this issue in a manner that is fair and respectful to their neighbours, or will they fight dirty? Based on this incident, the answer seems clear.

Why this development is so bad

There is appropriate development, there is sensitive development, and then there is just plain bad development.

This development is Just Plain Bad.

An Over-development

This development will comprise small apartments on a site that simply cannot support such a high number. These apartments will overwhelmingly be small, cramped 1 bedroom and studio apartments.

By stuffing so many apartments into such a small site the developers hope to gain a higher return, but this is clearly at the cost of the amenity of both the neighbours and the people in the apartments. Yarra Council unanimously rejected the development on several grounds, including lack of internal amenity in the building.

In other words, these small, ultra-high density apartments will have insufficient access to natural light and the building is not designed with sufficient space in the common hallways and spaces outside the apartments.

It’s Ugly!

York Street is a traditional inner-city street. Almost all of the houses are small, single-fronted terraces.

This development will be totally out of place amongst these small terraces – it will be an imposing 4-storey edifice that will dwarf the surrounding dwellings. Its design is a big, ugly concrete façade with a small modicum of cladding tiles that is totally at odds with the heritage designs of most of the houses in the rest of the street. But even if it wasn’t so ugly, it is just too big for the street – it will be a four-storey building in a street in which the tallest building currently facing the street is only two storeys.

Neighbouring houses in York Street

Houses opposite the proposed development

Too many cars – too few car parks

The development is proposed to contain 72 apartments, but its underground car park will contain only 53 car parks! This means that 19 apartments will have no car parks and any residents of these apartments will have to park on the street.

This might be possible in a wide street with lots of surplus parking spaces, but York Street is neither. It is not only already full – it is overflowing!

On every weeknight, every single car parking space in the street is taken:

There is simply no extra space for all the extra cars. And there is certainly no extra space for all the extra visitors that 72 extra dwellings will attract.

So how do the developers propose to address this issue?

Answer: they don’t.

Instead of putting together a responsible proposal that includes adequate parking spaces, the developers, in their desire to squeeze as many apartments as possible onto the site, have put together a proposal which has a car space for only 60% of the dwellings. They knew this was contrary to the requirements of the Yarra Planning Scheme. But instead of designing a building which complies with the Planning Scheme, they instead applied to be exempted from it! Even when local residents pointed out the inevitable consequences of such over-crowding, they refused to amend their plans.

As for the effect on existing residents, the developers have been even more dismissive. The developers’ representatives, SJB Planning, made the farcical suggestion that local residents could park around the corner in Regent Street – up to 200 metres away!

This development will choke York Street with extra cars. It will be a nightmare for local residents. But when you live on the Gold Coast and will never visit the place, it’s easy to think that it’s not your problem.

Too much traffic in an overcrowded street

York Street is an old 19th century inner city street. It was not designed for 21st century levels of motor vehicle traffic. When cars are parked on either side it is impossible for two cars to travel in opposite directions. Instead, one car must wait at the end of the street (up to 100 metres away) for the other car to pass.

The evidence speaks for itself – the street simply cannot afford an influx of any more cars.

Overshadowing – and lots of it

The development will cause major overshadowing of neighbouring properties. On the north-west corner of the site the four-storey building will be built right to the title boundary. There will be no set backs and no space between it and neighbouring backyards. It will look straight into the backyard and windows (less than 3 metres away) of 5 neighbouring properties. These properties will also be seriously overshadowed every single day and their windows facing the development will no longer receive any direct sunlight.

Yet the developers’ representatives have claimed that ‘there will be no loss of amenity’ to these properties. Is there no limit to the developers’ insensitivity and arrogance?

Noise – and lots of it

The development will be noisy, very noisy. It will include plant for 72 units, mounted onto a fifth-storey plant room on its roof. This will cause major noise pollution to neighbours. So far, the attitude of the developers has been dismissive. Their representatives, SJB Planning, have encouraged neighbours to take up any problems of noise to the EPA. A less-than-constructive response.

Properties bordering the northwest side will not only be overshadowed, they will have balconies on the third and fourth floor directly overlooking them and looking directly into their backyard and windows (less than 3 metres away). It is inevitable that noise will flow from these balconies at point-blank range into neighbouring properties.

Garbage removal, furniture removalists, drainage, air conditioning – so many questions, still no answers

The development proposal still does not address some simple but fundamental issues.

Garbage removal
The development must include rubbish bins for 72 different apartments. What happens when the rubbish needs to be collected? The entrance to the car park is too small for a garbage truck. There is no space at the front of the building to line up the rubbish bins for collection. So does this mean that 72 rubbish bins will need to be lined up on the footpath every week?

Residents moving in and out
The apartments are not designed for owner-occupiers. After all, what property owner would want to live themselves in such small, cramped accommodation? They are designed to be bought as investment properties and rented out, generally to younger, mobile people who will not be living there for long-term periods of time. The high turnover of tenants will mean people will be moving in an out on a regular basis. So where do the removal vans park to load and unload? The development does not have a driveway, nor does it include anywhere for an average size removal van to park. Given that York Street is so narrow, with cars constantly parked on each side, it is impossible to park a van on the street. If the average tenancy lasts for 3 years (an optimistic figure) then one-third (i.e. 24 of the apartments) will have people coming and going every year – that’s 48 removal van movements, or almost one per week, but with nowhere for them to go.

Air conditioning and plant
The development is so big it will need its own electrical substation. These things are noisy. Very noisy. The substation will not be located in the building but outside the building directly adjacent to a neighbouring property. And what of the air-conditioning units for 72 apartments? According to the plans, they will not be located within the plant room (which might reduce some of their noise) but mounted onto the roof, for all the neighbours to hear.

Drainage
The western end of York Street was recently dug up to replace the existing water drainage pipes, which were too old and which struggled to handle to flow from the existing dwellings. However, the drains were only replaced halfway up to the proposed development. If the existing infrastructure was not enough to handle what is already there, how can it possibly handle another 72 dwellings.

About the Development

The proposed development is a $10 million high-density residential building that will subsume the site currently occupied by the Melba Conservatorium of music and two neighbouring properties.

Under the proposal, the area currently occupied by the two-storey conservatorium, the conservatorium and two neighbouring terraces will be replaced by a single four-storey building containing 72 apartments and an underground car park for 53 cars.

All existing buildings, plants and gardens on the site will be completely demolished and replaced by the new building.

The building will take up almost all of the available space on the site, with only minimal space left for a tiny 'garden' on the western side.

York Street - before

York Street - after

The western side will directly overshadow neighbouring houses. Balconies on the third and fourth floor will directly overlook neighbouring houses.

An additional fifth-storey plant room level on top of the building will contain air conditioning units for all the building’s apartments and create additional noise for neighbours.

Save York Street – Who we are, What we believe

Who we are:

The Save York Street campaign is a grass-roots campaign organised by concerned residents of York Street, Richmond. Any concerned resident of the area is welcome to contibute.

York Street runs between Hoddle Street and Lennox Street in north-west Richmond. It is currently under threat from a huge high-density development proposed by Gold Coast property developers.

What we believe in:

We support sensible development. Over time, redevelopment of inner suburbs is inevitable. So is the trend to higher density.

Sensible development is appropriate to the existing environment and streetscape, sensitive to the legitimate concerns of neighbours and the concerns of the local council

Sensible development does not overwhelm the local infrastructure. And it does not attempt to ram through excessive development with no consultation.

All local communities must accept appropriate redevelopment in their area, but every local community has every right to oppose any redevelopment that is excessive and inappropriate.

We are different people of different ages, different backgrounds and different occupations. Some have lived in York Street for decades, some only for months. But we all agree on one thing – this is a BAD DEVELOPMENT that can only be BAD FOR OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD.

What we oppose:

We oppose excessive development. We oppose bad development.

We oppose development that will clog the street, overwhelm the local infrastructure, overshadow neighbouring properties and create unacceptable levels of noise and intrusion on neighbours.

We oppose the arrogance of interstate developers who will not accept the unanimous decision of Yarra Council to oppose the development.

We oppose the arrogance of interstate developers who will not consult with local residents.

We oppose the arrogance of interstate developers building the most excessive development possible to maximise their returns in a street that they will never have to live in themselves.